She looked at me until her lids drooped, and I could see her long lashes
against the whiteness of her skin.
She fell back a step, hesitating, and shrinking a little, still clinging
to the foot of the bed, and made a listless gesture with her left hand.
“You have broken into my room,” she said, steadily enough, but very low.
Women _are_ literal.
But it was so. I had done just that. Doubtless it was an outrageous
thing to do, but it had not seemed outrageous. It had come about quite
naturally.
Still, she confused me. I had been talking volubly; now, all of a
sudden, I could not speak at all. For the first time I fully realized
how pale she was. And she looked tired about the eyes, where nervous
exhaustion always shows first. It occurred to me, too, that her eyes
were very blue and distinctly beautiful. I never saw longer lashes.
So I stood stupidly there, looking at her. I had flown too high. Now
my spirits were dropping fast into a pit of depression. She suddenly
appeared to me as a helpless, pitiful creature. God knows there was
little enough privacy for her in this shabby hotel with its thin
partitions and its ill-fitting doors and its drifting, dubious class of
guests; and what little privacy she had I had violated. I looked at the
dilapidated bureau that had stood across our common door. It had taken
all my strength to push it aside. I wondered if she herself had moved
it there. What a pitiful effort, if she had, to shield her tired, hunted
soul from intrusion! “Will you please go!” she breathed.
I am afraid this nettled me a little At least, my coming in that wild
way had not been a personal matter I had tried to make that much plain
to her. Then why make it so personal! But that, of course, is the woman
of it. And God knows I was wrong--all wrong.
“Will you please go!” she breathed again.
I bowed and turned to the door. But then I occurred to me as likely that
I would no more than get my door closed before she would be in a frantic
hurry to move the bureau back. And that bureau was too heavy for her, or
for any woman. It was almost too heavy for me.
So I stepped back into her room and began tugging at the bureau again.
When I saw the fresh concern on her face, I nodded toward the hall door
and said, “I'll go out that way.”
She understood this. She even came over and watched me as I worked at
the thing. It would n't move. Having no castors, the feet had caught in
the matting. I went to the other end and pushed, but only succeeded in
tipping it up, and spilling several articles to the floor. I let the
bureau drop, and went down on my knees to pick them up. There was a
hair brush and a nail buffer, both with heavy silver backs bearing the
initials “H. C.” Then there was a small bottle with a glass stopper that
came out and let the contents of the bottle run over the matting. And
there was a wide tortoise-shell comb, of the sort that you pick up at
Nagasaki.
I put all these things back on the bureau, and pushed again. She stood
beside me in apparent hesitation, then, as if on an impulse, caught
hold and pulled with me. But it was no use. The matting was by this time
hopelessly wrinkled up about the feet. And after a moment of this we
both stepped back and looked at it. I simply had to stop anyway and mop
off my forehead and wipe my spectacles. I was all out of breath.
Then, after a moment, I took off my coat and dropped it on a chair.
“If you don't mind helping once more,” I began--
She inclined her head.
“--I'll have to lift it over those wrinkles.”
So I caught hold and lifted with all my strength. She went around to the
other side and threw her weight against it. Together we finally got it
back squarely across the doorway.
“I've made you a great deal of trouble,” I said, “and I'm sorry.” I
could n't resist adding the question, “Did you move it here before, by
yourself?”
She looked at me; then, slowly and guardedly, nodded.